"Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don't care as much about attractive sites and pretty design.
-- Tim Berners-Lee
“A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being -- designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.”
--Louis Kahn
Online Tools to Test Web Site Performance:
Is your site fast enough? In How Your Website Loses 7% of Potential Conversions Pioneering Analytics and Online Conversion Expert Bryan Eisenberg writes "a one second delay can lead to a 7% fewer conversions, 11 percent fewer pageviews, or even a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction. The first step in marketing your web site is building a technical foundation that delivers a good online experience for customers and prospects.
Speed is not the only issue. Does site copy include spelling errors? Is the HTML properly constructed? Are there any errors in coding that could cause problems?
W3C HTML Validation
Service
http://validator.w3.org/
A free service that checks documents like HTML and XHTML for conformance
to W3C Recommendations and other standards. You can also check your links at http://validator.w3.org/checklink or your Cascading
Style Sheets using W3C's CSS Validation Service at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
BrowserShots
http://browsershots.org/
Allows you to check your site on using many browsers and operating systems.
Spell Check Your Site
http://www.spellcheck.net/website-spellcheck/
Free spell checker for blocks of copy or an entire web site.
Web Page Analyzer
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
Free web page analysis tool calculates page size, composition, and download time. Gives speed recommendations based on best practices for usability, HCI, and website optimization.
Dr. Watson
http://watson.addy.com/
Analyze HTML syntax, verify regular links, verify image links, generate
word counts, spell-check non-HTML text and compute estimated download
speeds.
NetMechanic
http://www.netmechanic.com/
Fix HTML code errors, find browser display problems, optimize graphics
for fast download and more. Some features require a subscription.
Calculate Download
Time
http://www.onlineconversion.com/downloadspeed.htm
A calculator that tells you how fast a file will download depending on
your connection speed.
Web Page Size Checker
http://www.webpositionadvisor.com/tools/page_size_cheker.php
Is your
site too big to load quickly? If a page doesn't load in 8 seconds, you
could lose 1/3 of your visitors. Here's a tool from WebPositionAdvisor.com
that checks page size.
Check Your Cacheability
http://www.web-caching.com/cacheability.html
Does new site content really make it to your visitors? Some visitors could
have an older version of your site's pages stored in cache, on their hard
drive. Use this application to check your site's cacheability.
Screen Size Tester
http://www.dotfactor.com/tools/develop/htmlscreensizetester.shtml
This tool
from DotFactor.com allows you to check to see if your site can be viewed
correctly in at different screen resolutions. Many designers recommend
that at a minimum, web sites should work with at least 800 x 600 to 1024
x 768 screen resolutions, without the need for horizontal scrolling.
Web Accessibility
Evaluation Tool (Wave)
http://wave.webaim.org/
WAVE is a free web accessibility evaluation tool provided by WebAIM. It is used to aid humans in the web accessibility evaluation process. Rather than providing a complex technical report, WAVE shows the original web page with embedded icons and indicators that reveal the accessibility of that page.
Check DNS
http://www.DNSstuff.com
Numerous DNS tools, including DNS lookup, Reverse DNS lookup, DNS timing,
Ping and more.
Web Site Marketing Group | info@websitemarketinggroup,com | 786-390-2301